


A Shan Family Tradition

by SullustanGin



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: AU as Of 6.2 (but possibly still canon), Conflict Resolution, F/M, Fluff, Happy Ending, Light Angst, Parent Theron Shan, Parenthood, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:41:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27656987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SullustanGin/pseuds/SullustanGin
Summary: Satele Shan visits Theron's child shortly after his birth and has a conversation with the child's mother.  Lessons of the past will hopefully inform the future.
Relationships: Theron Shan/Female Smuggler, Theron Shan/Smuggler
Kudos: 28





	A Shan Family Tradition

**Author's Note:**

> In the wake of the preview trailer for "Echoes of Oblivion/Vengeance," I present a potentially AU fluff fic. This doesn't have spoilers for that trailer, but I might add this to the main series if it does turn out to be canon compliant. 
> 
> There was a spat of baby fever around Theron awhile back on tumblr, and this is a byproduct of that. It's happy. It's sweet. It's the fluffiest thing I've ever written, I think. Enjoy, regardless of what happens next canonically (I do hope this is still possible, however).
> 
> 12/13 - author's note updated: Based on the latest patch, it seems that Theron and Satele's relationship is on a positive trajectory; this feels a little off-beat now. But we'll see how things progress in game; we thought things would be better between them after Yavin, and then Satele disappeared after the destruction of the Jedi against the Eternal Fleet. So I'll keep this out of the main series and marked slightly AU for now.

Her feet were light as they touched down on the balcony railing. This had not been the most accessible entryway, and deliberately so; the patient was high profile, here under an alias, and discreetly guarded. The room backed up against the neighboring park biodome.

The seeker had a distinct advantage over any other well-wisher.

Quietly, her eyes skimmed the dim room, the low light deliberate. The main bed was still and dark; she could not see the occupant. She startled at the sight of a large creature looming in the corner, only to realize it was a stuffed animal, a plush life-size tauntaun toy. Her objective was sighted, and he was fast asleep, by some mercy. It had been awhile since she had done this, but her hands were as nimble as her feet and the security lock permitted her entry.

She had a knack for slicing, in her youth.

Cloaked in shadow, she drew near to her destination. Silence was her ally in this venture. As her quarry finally came within reach –

The click of a safety off a blaster reached her ears. “You going to snatch him up and take him away to some temple somewhere?”

Satele Shan spun in the darkness. She saw the glimmering dark eyes first. She planted her feet. 

The owner of the dark eyes scoffed, then allowed a low chuckle. “Stars. You look—no, he looks just like you when I’ve caught him doing something he shouldn’t. He’s just as unapologetic as you are, it seems.”

The blaster was lowered, and the owner of the room emerged from the darkest corner of her hospital room. She was still swollen from her labor, still tired from the previous day. “What is it with you Shans and balcony windows?” she asked rhetorically.

Eva Corolaster, the Voidhound, the Alliance Commander, galactically-renowned smuggler captain–

Yes, Captain was her preferred title, above all those. 

And now she added ‘mother’ to that list. 

Satele recognized a certain radiance. In part, it was due to the prenatal vitamins, another part due to the hormones. Her skin reflected the moonlight that streamed in through the window. Her hair had previously been worthy of comment; now it was remarkable for its glossiness and thickness. Satele noted it had been patiently braided into a single plait by agile fingers not unlike her own. 

However, a large part of that glow was the choice she had made to become this child’s mother – not just the labor and delivery, but the joy of bonding --

Satele had made a different choice than Eva. Then she had moved on.

Satele noticed that Eva was regarding her with a similar analytical eye. She likely saw a woman that had gone completely silver – no strand of cool brown hair sat on her head any longer. The lines were deeper and firmer. The gimlet eyes of the younger woman worked to update profiles in her head, memories from when they last crossed paths, and even from from when they first worked together in-person. (Eva had done jobs for the Republic that Satele was affiliated with, but she was a faceless contractor at the time; Yavin was one of the few times they saw each other face-to-face and knew each other for what they both were.)

Satele finally spoke, “No, I’m not taking him.”

“Too little to use the Force, right?” Eva sauntered, as best she could, given her current condition, coming to stand next to the bassinet, eyes quickly looking over the sleeping occupant, still there, still safe. The safety was clicked back on, but the blaster remained out.

Satele nodded, then added, “I wished to see him.”

“Visiting hours are 0900 to 1800 – you got a job now that interferes with that?” Eva turned to glare at Satele.

Her protectiveness was not just provoked by her newborn child. Satele had heard it in her voice and in body language years before on Odessen, when Satele herself apparently hadn’t answered ‘correctly’ (in the smuggler’s mind) in regard to Theron. 

Somehow, despite the hostility, Satele was strangely comforted to know that someone felt so intensely about Theron. She had never permitted herself the luxury, beyond his first few minutes of life. 

Satele respectfully kept her distance. “I felt my presence during the day would distract and cause disruption.” 

“And it would also put yourself in the same room as your own son and his father. Very inconvenient for you.” 

Through her own intel, Satele knew the smuggler wasn’t raised with any healthy fear of Force users or any compulsion to be respectful of them by default. After all that had occurred with the Eternal Empire, Satele understood why Darth Marr had found that refreshing. She also had anticipated that, now that this woman was a mother, she would be called to the floor for the few decisions that she had made as Theron’s mother, before she abdicated that responsibility and that role.

“Perhaps, but do you think my presence would improve the day for Theron or Jace?” Satele kept her voice even and cool.

The brows lowered as Eva peered closer at her. “You’re suddenly worried about damage control and other people’s feelings.” 

That was deserved. Satele tilted her head slightly in acknowledgement. “It’s time I was, after all that has passed, and all the consequences.” 

Eva was silent for a few moments. “You should I know I will be telling Theron you were here and what we talked about.” 

Satele nodded. “I have learned that partners shouldn’t keep secrets from each other. I don’t expect you to lie on my behalf.”

The sharp eyes flashed again, curiosity and a hot temper competing for dominance. 

Satele had understood Eva to be very intelligent and was not surprised when the curiosity won out. 

Eva gestured to the balcony outside. She hesitated as she looked down at her son.

“The night air won’t hurt him. And his ankle tag will sound if I attempt to take him,” Satele pointed out. 

Eva’s lips curled in a slight smile as she finally slipped the hold-out blaster into her robe pocket. The child had never been in danger of being taken. They both knew that. Eva scooped up the swaddled bundle from his hospital bassinet, holding him close to her, but in a way that Satele could see her grandson’s face.

Memories from over 40 years ago filtered into Satele’s mind. She had been in Eva’s position at about that same age. Neither of them were young girls when they gave birth. That wouldn’t prevent either of them from making unwise choices, sometimes the wrong choices for their child.

Eva would have to learn that in time.

“Does he have a name yet?” Satele asked, as Eva came through the balcony door.

“Argento. Argento Shan,” Eva clarified. 

Satele paused a moment, looking at the small, peaceful face. “Silver. A silver-lining to clouds.”

Eva nodded, face relaxing as she thought of the memory. “Theron chose it. Jace didn’t get it at first. Guess we know where Theron got his knack for word-games from.”

Satele let herself have a small smile. “Yes.” She had been born to a Jedi mother with some rather unorthodox views about attachments and child-rearing.

Given how Tarsiele Shan had ended up, Satele couldn’t look back on her own childhood with a carefree heart. Yes, that had caused her to make certain decisions.

She had never wanted Theron to suffer as she had, in silence and in shame. 

The smuggler didn’t need to know that. 

But her questions would be inevitable. “Why are you here now with me and him, and not Theron?” Eva asked.

Satele looked down at Argento. “I only wanted to see the child. I indulged a concern for something helpless; his father is far from that…as is his mother.”

“Yeah, you forgot about me,” Eva muttered. “So you worried over your grandson? Even just a little?”

Satele nodded. He was a baby, after all – defenseless and so small.

Eva’s expression was momentarily thoughtful and soft, but that disappeared quickly. “Would it really have killed you to have a little worry about Theron? Not because he’s helpless….but just because? And actually tell him?”

Satele shook her head. “That wouldn’t have undone anything that made his life harder.” 

Eva frowned. “It’s not about making the past easier or harder. It’s about knowing someone gave a shit about you in the universe before you reached your late twenties,” she replied, with an extra ‘zing’ of emphasis on the socially inappropriate word.

Satele answered, steadily, “I did care.”

“You did not show it. So many times over these years.”

Satele closed her eyes for a moment to compose herself. When she opened them, she found Eva studying her closely. She remembered that concentrated look from the Yavin op, when she and Theron worked together. Eva assessed Satele as she did a large problem.

Satele elected to seize the problem by the root -- the deepest issues. It would not be the things Eva and Theron had talked about and dealt with together; Satele knew that they were too close, too involved, and too attached to each other for such subjects to be silently ignored. No, Satele would offer up the things Theron himself may not have known, the unanswerable questions Eva may have had. It was most pertinent to the place Eva Corolastor stood now. “It was always assumed Theron would be a Jedi. The Force was strong in the female line of my family; Force-sensitive mothers had Force-sensitive children.”

Eva dropped her gaze to her own child, and Satele could see the troubled looked on her face. No, she didn’t want her son to be Force-Sensitive, nor any of his siblings. 

Satele was patient in her explanation. “If Theron had become a Jedi, his path would have been more difficult by his attachments to me. It would have been worse to have been attached to his father, if he had known about him, especially if Jace was not as stalwart as he was in his service – if he had let revenge consume him as I feared. It was always assumed Theron would succeed best as a Jedi if he had as few connections to Jace and me as possible. We would meet one day, I was sure of it.”

Eva absorbed the information. “But… that’s not what happened.”

“No.” Satele felt the problematic feelings about the situation encroach upon her discipline.

Theron had called Eva, affectionately, his clever girl; Satele had overheard it more than once over the years. Eva assembled the pieces and lived up to Theron’s admiration. “You never imagined a scenario where Theron _wasn’t_ Force-Sensitive….and the way Zho dropped him like a hot blaster –”

“Was unpredictable. I never thought– ” 

Satele remembered the moment she reported the rediscovery of Tython to the main of the Republic. Her ship -battered and limping more than just a bit- finally came within range of transmission. She felt the exhilaration of achievement, the weight of history upon her but not yet a burden. She had done what others before her had failed to do.

The congratulation poured in from Coruscant first. Jedi would be sent to help her form a temple there as soon as possible; the sack still made Coruscant’s temple too painful a place to train the survivors and far too full of darkness for younglings. 

Her pride and glory lasted only a few minutes before frantic comms from weeks ago, from Haashimut and Master Till’in. Theron, alone. Theron almost dead. Zho, gone.

For a brief and tempting second, Satele thought the time had come for Theron to become a padawan, and what better place than Tython? What better Master than—

She read the rest of the message from Till’in, and suddenly any hopes she had were dashed.

“I’m sorry,” Satele burst out abruptly, as the feelings of rage and panic and disappointment became real for a moment and must have clearly paraded across her face. 

When she dared look at Eva again, the smuggler was not put off. In fact, quite the opposite: “Don’t be sorry. It makes me like you better.” She dared to take a step closer to the Jedi. “Theron… was always more angry about Zho’s decision than yours.”

There was a wave of relief that finally hit Satele.

But Eva wasn’t done yet. “But over 85 percent of the galaxy have no Force skills, and you gambled that your kid was somehow in the special top 10 percent that could actually become Jedi? You never considered he’d be weak or just _see it_ and not _use it_?”

Satele’s memory produced a Mon Cal that fit that description. He’d become part of the smuggler’s crew. Satele wondered if he was alive and part of that cadre. 

“No. And that was a flaw in my decision-making, thirteen years before Zho left him.” 

Satele had learned within the last ten years that stereotypes about Jedi arrogance weren’t completely unfounded. She was a living embodiment of them, in some areas. This area. 

“Why didn’t you fix it?” Eva asked, voice low. 

Satele was slow to answer. “How could I have fixed it? It would have been cruel to appear before him, express care for him, then pass him off to someone else while I went back to my life. A life he could not join.”

“Jace –”

“Jace would have heard from me for the first time in years with news that not only did he have a son that I hid from him, that son now had been abandoned by his guardian, and I needed someone to mind him,” Satele cut her off, smoothly, and she used the look she employed on wayward padawans. “How well do you think that would have gone? Not knowing how Jace had turned out after I left him,” she amended slightly. “Not knowing how Theron was or would be in reaction to all of that.”

Eva stared at Satele, and the older woman notice how her hands subtly clutched at Argento. “So you entrusted him to the state.”

“I believe the Republic acts in the interests of the greater good. Military school and its rigors were not dramatically different from the expectations of the Jedi – different content, same structures.”

“Same detachment from all their little footsoldiers,” Eva said, her voice icy.

“Theron was raised as a youngling. He understood what it would mean to be a padawan. There are systems of care in the Jedi system, just as there are in the military academies. They do not replace parents. Theron always expected that in his life Now imagine him suddenly living in Jace’s home with all the relative chaos of a civilian child’s life, without the structures he knew. Or in your case, imagine the opposite.”

Eva’s face faltered for a second. She hadn’t thought of that. She hadn’t thought that Theron being placed with Jace meant an utter break from his normal life as a regulated and trained aspirant. It would be like ripping her off her ship – something even Satele understood about the smuggler.

Eva’s face recovered, as did her voice. “But still, no contingency plan.”

“That was my error. You will make your own. It is inevitable.” 

The two women stood in silence. Eva knew her words to be true.

Eva swallowed. “Did you – when you held Theron the first time – did you feel anything?”

Satele felt a small, sad pull inside her heart. “Yes. All the indescribable emotions that you know.”

They didn’t have to have an in-depth discussion about that. They knew. 

“And you still gave him up.” A small chirp, the start of a fuss, distracted Eva for a moment. She was concerned she had disturbed Argento, but he had already quieted and returned to slumber. 

“I knew in that second I could not continue to hold onto my son and still serve the Republic with an unweighted heart. I loved him too much to have room for other things.” Satele folded her hands in front of her. There was her confession. “Theron understood—”

“Yes, he does. But _I_ will never understand. Not after holding Argo” – the child’s nickname slipped out and Satele’s own detachment stuttered – “and not after seeing Theron hold his son.” Satele felt the last reserve crumble away. Eva stopped for a second, as if the happiness of the memory temporarily declawed her anger as she looked at Argento himself. No, her fury was still there, though quieter. “No, I’ll never understand. Maybe it’s because I’m still just a dumb smuggler.”

The leaves rustled in the night air. 

**

Eva looked up from her son’s dear face to find Satele had pulled a vanishing act. She wasn’t far, probably. Loudly, Eva said for her unseen conversation partner and the crickets, “And I’m fine being a dumb smuggler if I get to have the two of them.”

Argento twitched slightly, but he was used to his mother being loud. 

Eva never thought of herself as the greatest mind in the galaxy, nor the bravest warrior, and by no means the most virtuous patriot. That was fine. She had her people. Not just her two – her crew, her misfits, her friends on Odessen and scattered across the stars. 

Satele had to live without having anyone. Jace was retiring from the military soon enough; if she did come back, she would not have that power in her corner anymore. The Jedi Order was reforming without her and without the use of Tython. 

It was profoundly ironic that Satele Shan’s lasting contribution to the galaxy and its general well-being – the greater good -- was ultimately her son Theron, the child she had left behind, not the planet she went looking for. Theron had had mixed feelings when Tython was discarded by Task Force Nova. Eva laughed, bitterly and more than a bit nastily when the news came down.

Then again, Eva found she couldn’t hate Satele Shan as much as she thought she could. 

Eva heard the hospital room door open, light from the hallway surging in, a familiar male shadow partially obscuring the light. She heard him call for her. “Out here.”

Theron was outside with her within seconds, despite running into the seven-foot tall stuffed tauntaun. Jace had strapped it into the passenger seat of his speeder and then insisted hauling up from the hospital parking lot. “You’re carrying it back out,” Theron had warned him, barely containing his laughter. 

Apparently, the tauntaun had a life-sized nerf friend back at Jace’s Alderaan residence, waiting.

Theron looked as exhausted as she felt (and probably looked, twice over), but a persistent smile was there. His hands reached to embrace her carefully, leaving enough room for Argento to be undisturbed between them. He hadn’t shaved yet, so his scruff pressed against her face as he kissed her ‘hello.’ He kept one arm around her shoulder as the other drifted down to rest on the baby. Their son was a good size, but he seemed so small under his father’s hand. Eva saw Theron’s eyes go soft as he checked on the infant. “Already going on walkabout? That restless?”

Eva tucked her head under his chin, and he gently shifted his stance to be closer to her. The oxytocin was roaring away; Theron had told her, when she had hormone spikes during the pregnancy, she was literally irresistible – he felt compelled to hold her. That was sometimes met with dirty looks and random tears, but mostly and in the case of tonight, Eva snuggled up willingly. Best grab it now, because when she told him the truth, he’d be racing away.

“Satele came to see him. Just to look in on him.” Eva felt Theron stiffen. “I caught her. We spoke briefly. She left.” 

Theron kept his voice low and quiet for her sake and that of the child. “What’d she say?”

Eva replayed the conversation in her head. “She never expected you wouldn’t be a Jedi. That’s why things fell apart when you were a kid.”

“Well, neither did I, so we’re about even on that count,” Theron muttered roughly.

“That, and she didn’t expect Zho to handle it as he did….she was angry.”

“You saw that? Satele Shan having an emotion outside the range of serene? I should call Jace.”

Eva stepped on his booted foot with all the force her slipper could muster, and his cavalier attitude dissipated slightly. 

He spoke again, “But it doesn’t change her choices or giving me up for the Republic – that, I always understood.”

“Let’s not go there – you _know_ how I feel about _that_.” Her eyes met his.

Theron’s eyes slid back down toward Argento. “Yes.” Theron understood both sides of that argument, now.

Eva sighed. “My point is, she copped to making a mistake when she thought how your life when going to play out – she only thought of one seemingly obvious path.” Eva paused, then stepped on his foot again, begging for his attention. He gave to her, easily. “When would we know if Argo…isn’t like us?”

Theron’s lips parted, stealing a breath of air, and then he answered, “Depends on the child. Some are moving things around as toddlers. Others only have it appear as a pushback when they’re frightened or startled. Others start late. Like at 9.”

Theron had been with Zho until he was 13. 

There had always been something “wrong.” 

Eva opened her mouth to speak, but Theron stopped her by tipping his forehead down to touch hers. “The galaxy is different from when I was the kid – the Republic has changed. The Jedi have changed. The grey path – I don’t know what that will become. We’ll figure it out when – if – it happens. We’re _both_ going to be there to make those decisions.” Theron drew back slightly to give her a piercing look, one that emphasized that last promise. 

Things weren’t going to be the same for father and son.

“And then she left?” Theron asked, a little louder, a little more firm, a little more secure.

“Yeah.”

Theron didn’t respond. In fact, he didn’t say anything else. He simply pressed a kiss to the top of her head and pulled her just a bit closer, almost a protective gesture. 

Eva let herself lean on him a little bit, soaking up the moment, but she felt like she had to give him the chance. “She left just before you came. If you move fast, you can catch up with her—”

“No.” The answer was swift and soft.

Eva stepped back slightly to gaze up at him, the moon shining down on them. “You can go. This is the closest you’ve been to –”

“No.” Theron said it again, just as firmly, but his face was not hard or annoyed. If anything, he looked…. Content?

Eva continued to look up at him, silently asking for an explanation.

Theron wordlessly gestured to her, asking to hold the still sleeping baby. Eva carefully handed Argento over, privately relieved that this child was unlike both parents: not a light sleeper at all.

Theron apparently had developed the ability to read minds or least predict the thoughts behind the amused expression on her face. “Jace slept through his bunker being bombed out. Twice.” 

As Theron shifted the tiny bundle in his arms, making sure the precious cargo was secure, he spoke softly to his wife. “When I was alone at the Academy, I would have dropped everything to chase after Zho and find him – if I had ever had any word. I cut class more than a few times whenever I heard Satele Shan was coming to Corellia. I tried to get close enough to see her, to yell out to her – security was too good, and I was still just a kid. I hadn’t joined SIS yet. I couldn’t chase her down.” 

The baby settled in his arms, Theron turned his olive-gold eyes toward Eva. “I grew up. I joined SIS and the greater good. Satele knew I was in the system, knew I was in the service, but she never reached out. I didn’t want to disturb her.” He paused as Eva shifted her weight slightly; she had been standing for awhile. “After the last mission with Zho, I decided it was for the better if I didn’t see her if possible. It wouldn’t go well. I was no longer a child chasing his mother.”

Theron sighed a little, checked on his son for a moment before continuing. “Then there was Jace. He’s never stopped chasing after what he missed out on. He’s got that house on Alderaan. Despite his flaws and our disagreements, he’s desperate to be involved in my life – mostly because I’m proof that Alderaan happened. Alderaan and everyone – _everything_ – that comes with it, I think.”

“That’s a little mean,” Eva chided him gently.

“It’s at least a little honest, too.” Theron shrugged with no malice in his voice or demeanor. “It did make me want some sort of acknowledgment from her – that we were connected, that her choice did matter to her, but also that her choices hurt people. Like Jace. And when I was child, me.”

It was a shared, unsaid opinion that it wouldn’t have been the worst thing in the galaxy for Jace Malcom to raise Theron Zho (his legal name, until he was enrolled at Coronet City Military Academy; he at 13 personally chose a new name: his first act of rebellion).

“But then someone started chasing after _me_. Wanting me around just for me, Theron, the Force-numb. Theron the reader. I think someone said they had an active preference for ‘Just Theron’,” he teased her gently. “I ran, because I didn’t know what to do with that. I paid for it.” There was only a momentary shadow on his face before Theron leaned down to kiss her on the lips, lingering. “After fourteen years of being in love with you and nine or fourteen years of you trying to love me despite my worst efforts, I’m happily caught. I don’t need to chase anything anymore.” 

“Not even just to the nearest spaceport?”

“I’m not missing a second of this.”

Argento chose that moment to stir awake, squawking slightly as Theron finished his sentence. It was over in a moment, but the baby was now awake. “Oh, now this is starting already,” Theron teased as he gave Eva a look. They’d both been warned about how their alone time together would be limited. 

“This is what we have Bowdaar and Lana for, and Jace, if we can tolerate the kidnapping risk,” Eva quipped, and despite any objections from the third wheel, she kissed Theron again.

With a gentle nudge of his hip, Theron started to direct her back inside her hospital room. As they walked side-by-side, Theron spoke softly to Argento, and the baby’s attention was fixed on that strangely familiar voice. A look of wonder crossed Theron’s face, as it had several times over the last day. “I know he can’t see me yet, but he hears me and then just stares at me as if he knows me from somewhere.” 

“Well, you’re the guy who’s been singing to him for the last four months.” 

Eva didn’t exactly have fun being pregnant, but she would trade a lot to relive the memories of waking up to find Theron, sprawled sideways across the bed, talking to his unborn child, and also the memories of trying to go to sleep with Theron negotiating with the baby over not bouncing around so much. Theron had tried to appease the fetal tyrant through stories and songs, anything to give Eva another few minutes of rest. 

Argento’s blue eyes opened wider slightly at Eva’s voice, recognizing her as the most consistent soundtrack in his tiny life. “I wonder what color they’ll turn,” she murmured. “Hoping for yours.” 

“That’d be cool.” Theron still seemed more than a little awestruck that he had become a father – he’d been involved in creating life, and he got to watch the entire time. He whispered to Argento, “We’re going to get to know all about you.”

Theron’s chaincode simply said he was born on a date and adopted by Ngani Zho. No parents were listed. No place was listed. Theron didn’t know what planet he’d been born on; he never had asked Satele, and Zho couldn’t remember. 

Argento Shan had a chaincode with both parents recorded, with a location, just like Eva. Hers technically said “in transit,” but her father had always pointed out ‘where your Ma sprang a leak’ and ‘where I had to put the ship on autopilot’ whenever they came near Bespin and its neighbors. 

There were no mysteries or questions or secrets about Theron’s son. He would always have answers, unlike Theron. 

Eva felt herself grow tired with those heavy thoughts. “How about you tuck me back in and spend some time with Argo before you kick off for the night?” 

Theron looked at her, eyes bright. “I’m fine. I got a half hour nap in.” 

Eva smiled; he was too excited to sleep, despite walking the floors with her and worrying over her the entire labor. She watched as Theron carefully and almost reluctantly put his son back in his bassinet. 

Then his attention was on her, all love and concern as he sorted out the tangle of sheets and blankets she had left behind. He sighed, smiled, and shook his head as he retrieved her hold-out blaster from her robe pocket and pocketed it somewhere – Eva couldn’t really keep track anymore. Then he helped her carefully perch on the edge of the bed and swing her feet up, slippers left behind on the floor, slightly askew. Theron tucked her in as requested, then he knelt at her bedside. Casting a glance over toward their son, who was starting to stage a prison break out of his swaddling, Theron whispered to her, “Another chapter together.”

Eva turned her head toward him and said, tired and beginning to doze, “Mmm. Chapters. Think we can count this as ‘happily ever after’?”

She felt him kiss her one more time. “I count it.”

**Author's Note:**

> When I first posted the idea, I got support to write it from a lot of people. Thanks to shanfamilydrama, commanderlurker, previousjane, cartertarot, ivalane, and theoreticalconstruct for their comments and reblogs on my baby!Shan headcanon. Thanks to everyone else (even more folks!) that liked it.


End file.
